


something good right now

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Banter, Billy Hargrove's Freckles, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Feelings, Flirting, Jossed, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Public Pools Are the Worst, Romance, Secret Relationship, Steve Harrington Is in Love, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 02:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18842131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: When Billy's skin is almost feverishly hot from the sun, Steve's fingertips touch his freckles like they'd touch the inside of him, carefully and longingly.





	something good right now

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the H&M photoshoot Dacre blessed us with.
> 
> This was supposed to be about 400 words of Steve admiring Billy's freckles and maybe Billy being into Steve's moles, but. IDK. Went overboard again. Took over a week to write/finish. Goodnight; need sleep.
> 
> (Title from "Handclap" by Fitz and The Tantrums.)

When Billy's skin is almost feverishly hot from the sun, Steve's fingertips touch his freckles like they'd touch the inside of him, carefully and longingly.

He leaves for the public pool in the dark and chill of the early morning. By the time Steve joins him, the day is furnace-hot and white-hot light shines in sheets on the water's surface. By then Billy's no longer loose and sweet and close liked he's been in the small hours when Steve had reached out of the dark to grip his shoulder. Steve spots him across the crowd of sunbathers, tan and slick and cool like a glass of fresh water.

After months and months, he now knows what they don't. He knows Billy's _burning up_ , not like you'd burn toast, not singing it to ashes, but more like newsprint, quick and hot. He burns like rope pulled quickly through your closed fist would. Your palms would be raw, and you'd ache for the feel of them.

Like a fucking firecracker.

Looking at him isn't like staring into the sun, or anything trite like that. Steve isn't blinded.

Once, when he was closer to six years old than to five, the sky had erupted into red. Two ribbons of fire across the sky. After, his mother had told him their phone had been cut off because of it, left them stranded in their too-big house, but no one at school and on the playground had said anything about it, so Steve hadn't said anything either. But he remembers the tongue-like flames. He'd thought the sky beautiful, as if the world were waiting to end and he got to watch it unfold. No one had said anything about the fire in the sky either, and Steve had known not to say anything about having seen it. In Hawkins, you learn quick, or you forget quick.

When he looks at Billy, Steve isn't blinded. When he looks at Billy, his eyes sing. His heart threatens to burst out of his chest. When Billy looks at him, it feels like it just might.

The public pool is _loud_. All thought is drowned out by the roar of shrieking children and chattering parents. Under an impossibly blue summer sky, Steve's insides are a fierce fever watching Billy strut around the edge of the pool, thin-tender summer skin stretched over tight new muscles. The morning isn't that far behind when his mouth feels swollen and raw, and he can still taste Billy on his tongue. His swim trunks are a red-raw cherry colour, bright and peppy and loud.

The edges of Steve's hair are sweat-damp as he weighs his odds. Weighs Billy's willingness to be drawn away from raucous kids and pushy adults. It's a mercifully free Sunday, away from ice cream freezers and bored mall rats and spilt buttermilk everywhere. Steve isn't quite sure yet whether "mallingering" thirteen-year-olds are worse than toddlers slipping and sliding at breakneck speeds on a concrete pool edge, but neither are a walk in the park, so he feels confident about crossing the sea of sunbathers purposefully.

Standing by the lifeguard chair currently occupied by a very bored-looking Heather, Billy is all attitude and snarl. Steve can see it in the curl of his lip and the glint of his eye.

"Shitheads giving you any trouble?" Steve asks, cocking his head and motioning towards the side of the pool where half of The Party are having a water fight among ear-piercing shrieks.

Billy, not even glancing at the pool, says, "No more than usual." Then, "Finally deigning to grace us with your presence, huh, King Steve? Private pool not big enough?"

It's Steve's third time here this week. Billy knows this, more than knows. His words aren't for Steve's benefit. No one's listening, there's too much noise for anyone to be trying, but they have their dance for when they're in public. It's not whiplash if they're both doing it. And, after all, the world has teeth.

"Why don't you come over and see for yourself?" Hates the hitch in his own voice. Ignores it. Feels his face warming up anyway.

Billy smirks like it's one big joke, which it kind of is. "Lucky for you I'm on my lunch break." He glances briefly towards Heather's perch, enough to yell out, "I'm taking my lunch," and to make sure Heather's heard. Then walks past Steve while she gives him the finger from up on high.

Steve waits for him to put on a shirt before they head to the shaded parking lot and Steve's Beamer. He's put on something that's half fake-Hawaiian, half preppy frat-douche. Brown with little flower-like mouths. Looking at it for too long makes Steve kind of sick to his stomach for no reason.

The Beamer's seats are cool. They drive with the windows down, and for the first time Steve's glad everything in Hawkins is a stone's throw away from everything else if you're driving above the speed limit and the Chief's willing to give you a pass when the days are long and quiet. All of them deserve some long, quiet summer days.

The house is as empty as when he left it.

He curls his fingers into the hem of Billy's ridiculous shirt by the foot of the stairs, but he's slippery like an eel, like quicksilver in Steve's palm. He snatches at Steve's own plain white tee with boisterous hands, but not rough, just greedy. Finds the curve of Steve's waist and the quickly rising goosebumps on his skin.

This close, in the shade of Steve's front hallway, it's easy to count the freckles dotting his nose and cheeks, like little stars in an endless sky. The blue of his eyes is darker here, and Steve wants to wrap himself in him like he'd do in the familiar blankets of his childhood. Like this, the world has fewer teeth.

He lets Billy press him down into the mattress, the way you let the sun shine down on you. Lets him kiss along his jaw and down the column of his neck and back up again to mouth at his lips and nip at his tongue, blond curls tickling his nose and getting in his eyes and between his teeth. An avalanche of gold, waves and waves of it.

Steve wants to get greedy hands on sun-soaked skin. Grasp at sun-bleached curls. He tries not to notice the skin and muscle and bones under his fingertips for fear of it all crumbling to dust. When you want so badly your mouth waters you fear to _grasp_.

Billy reaches out, drags Steve's palms up his own body, into the tufts of hair at the nape of his neck and higher still. Then kisses lower, between the folds of Steve's clothing, _down down down_ , kissing at his hip bones, and at the tops of his thighs, and at the thin skin in-between.

Lunch is the peanut butter cookies Steve's mother buys on Wednesdays and a tall glass of homemade lemonade from this morning, Steve's grandma's recipe. Billy leaves crumbs on the Beamer's dashboard and across the front seats.

Sunday afternoon turns into pandemonium, exhausted children and disinterested parents everywhere, and Steve sitting by himself on a fluffy beach towel to wait out the end of Billy's shift. It's hard not to bring out the puppy eyes from the shaded part of the pool. Not to blink slowly and stare Billy down in the last half an hour of his shift. It's a bid for attention, or maybe a cry for help with Steve's boredom, counting down the minutes and seconds to freedom, and to cool beers by Steve's pool, and to mac and cheese from the box in Steve's kitchen.

Then, finally, Billy saunters over, the skin around his eyes tight with a different kind of exhaustion.

"Oh, sweetheart. You waiting for me?" he smirks.

There are still people, milling around, people everywhere. The heart of Hawkins is half a second from staring. From listening in. It's dangerous.

"You never did tell me if mine was bigger. Just wanted to make sure you got the full tour, is all," he says, voice level.

Billy kind of glances over people. Like they're invisible or something to ignore until absolutely necessary. When he turns to Steve, it's with a deliberate stare, baiting him, even though it's a ruse. Steve's already on the hook.

Sometimes, he looks like he'd like nothing more than to climb inside him and rip him to shreds. Then Steve has to swallow a lump of absolutely nothing, of his own claws and teeth wanting to dig just as deep.

The sun is hot and high in the sky.

"You are so full of shit, Harrington," he says. But to Steve it sounds like, _Don't let it all just be bullshit_.

Steve won't. Steve doesn't.

The sun is hot and high in the sky, but Billy shines even brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> The 1972 solar storm is real, but human beings cannot actually see the flares with the naked eye. But Steve grew up in Hawkins, so.
> 
> I [tumble](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com) again. If you wanna chat or whatever. I'm Highsmith#6255 on Discord, too. 'Night, 'night.


End file.
